Trident 1C G-ARPO Dismantle works.

[Mackrick]

Looking good Tony....

[Jigsaw]

Looking good indeed
Amazing how swift the progress is, brilliant.

[Tony Jarrett]

Hi All
The team were back up at Teeside on Thurs 30th sept and we picked the best day weather wise for it, beautiful warm sunshine for most of the day being buzzed by red admiral butterflies. The day started with a crane from MSD cranes being hooked up to the horizontal stabilizer and an access van sponsered by Warren access of Burleigh . Newcastle . We continued where we left off and used an impact wrench to try and shift the 8 bolts that hold it on.Unfortunatly this still did not work so we had to resort to plan c ,to disk cut off the bolts so we can then lift the stab free. This was a very labourious job as the bolts are cased hardened meaning that it took an average time of an hour a bolt to cut off.Stan from MSD cranes was given this task and a great job he done. At 3.15 pm we had to make the decision to stop where we were leaving 2 bolts out of the 8 still to cut. This is due that we cannot work much past 4.oclock as SERCO are finishing there day. This ensured we left the stab stable in the air until we return soon to cut off these two remaining bolts and it will then be free to lift down.
More work was done around the port and starboard landing gear in losening some areas in preparation to when we fold the landing gear for transportation. Thanks to Julian and phil and Neil .
Matt had the responsibility of filming and snap taking while Peter sorted the surplus metal out that was cut from the rear into the skip that we had delievered from Alex of AC metals. Peter also ensured that all our work areas are swept and kept very clean.
Neil did a vast amount of restoration in the cockpit as well as directed the works shedule for the day using his vast experience with the Trident .
To sum up the day.... We came away with a feeling that we are moving in the right direction and with the removal of the stab at the next meeting the progress will increase quiet rapidly..Obviously the last two visits we incurred some costs we were not expecting as we were hoping to get the stab down on our first attempt but some times they say good things comes to those who wait and we know it will be third time lucky as we have found the solution to removing it.

[Gaz]

Thanks for the update. Glad to see things progressing.

[Tony Jarrett]

Hi All
Well finally the weather was kind to us today and the good news is we have now got the Horizontal stabilizer off.. We did in the end have to use oxygen and acetylene and cut the 8 bolts between the top block and pivot.What we found was the bolts had a larger diameter at one end to the other, this we could not see or measure before hand.We also started to remove the port side engine inner caseing and are a bolt away from removal.
We shall return in the next couple of weeks to remove the tail fin .
Huge thanks goes to our sponsers today who are SAS access for the van cherry picker and operator, Henderson Engineering who cut the bolts , HSS of Darlington, MSD Cranes
We still need donations for the continued efforts in restoring this aircraft so please help in anyway you can. We are also looking for another volunteer to join the team who is an experienced ,qualified disk cutter .
Photos of today will follow on our website and hopefully i can get some to put on here

cheers tony

[Mayfly]

Thanks for the update Tony, look forward to the photos

[Trident man]

Although i coud not make it for the stab removal Matt kindly sent me some photos.......

On it's way off...


Off...


Vertical fin next to be removed....watch this space.

ps i am building my own website on the Trident check it out here http://hs121trident.co.uk/

[Gaz]

Nice work!

Nice looking website too!

[Minty4371]

Just watched a programme on Discovery History about the Trident. Interviews with Neil Lomax and other people involved with the remaining Tridents. Second part of the same programme was about the VC10s. Wonder when that was filmed.

[Trident man]

Hi Minty,Classic British Aircraft was filmed in 2003 and was great fun to do as the producer was very keen on the project.

[Sploosher]

Thats another aviation site saved in my favourites.....................

[Trident man]

Latest dismantle news.........

The fin has been removed... today 03/02/11

A few images from our work today...

Fin on the way off...


Airborne..


Away..


Down with the team..


Next job, remove the wings..

[Jigsaw]

Excellent stuff

[Tonks]

Some impressive work there Neil! The cockpit is looking great!

Tonks

[Trident man]

Thanx Tonk's...how are things on the Vickers Fun Bus these days? guess you are quite busy at present!

[Tony Jarrett]

Hi All
Can announce that the long awaited wing removal will take place in the 2nd week of April..This will be over a duration of 3 days with a day prior to bring in the equipment that we require , ie, sleepers, scaffold and other necesary items.
This will then leave us with a dismantled Trident ready to move to Sunderland.
This stage is very demanding on the funds we have left so would like to ask for your generous help again in raising the monies to pay for this stage.
thankyou so much , regards tony

[RLN]

Thanks for letting us know. Look forward to some photos.

[Tony Jarrett]

Today has been a great day for the Trident with Two sponserships, Firstly
RES TEESIDE SCAFFOLDING has sponsered us with a 7.2 metre platform and two Towers for us to use for the duration of 3 days for the wing removal as well as delievering and picking up.
secondly
TNT at Belfast international Airport have agreed to sponser us with bringing the Rudder and wing tips from BFS to Teeside via land and sea.

Both of these sponserships are absolutely fantastic and we would all like to thank them for their ethusiam and great kindness towards the Trident project..

regards tony

www.savethetrident.org

[Sooty655]

Great news, Tony.

Hope the work goes smoothly.

[Trident man]

Update on works,PO was airborne once more on Wednesday as we prepared to remove the wings....all went well until we started to cut the wing and to our horror the aircraft still had some fuel in it,we halted works and decided that the wings needed venting so we are now on hold for a few weeks.We managed to remove all the wheels and brakes and one of the engine mounting/nacelles so all was not lost,i will add piccys from our three days at Teesside.

In the air once more....



Yours truly removing nose wheels...



Myself and Stan share a joke while removing the mainwheels...



Hey presto...no wheels!

[Gaz]

Still had fuel in!!!

Wasn't she used for fire training??

Isn't that a touch dangerous???

[Trident man]

Gaz,the aircraft was de-fueled way back in 1983,but some fuel will remain (not always possible to drain it all off) hence we stopped and removed tank access panels to begin the venting process,we also drilled holes under the wing to drain off what's left.

[Gaz]

That'll explain why the Guppy still reads 1000lb of fuel, on one of the dials

[Vulcan Bomber]

That'll explain why the Guppy still reads 1000lb of fuel, on one of the dials

In slightly the wrong thread but Gaz, Wasnt the Guppy used for fuel storage for a while up until recently?

Cheers, David.

[Tony Jarrett]

Tomorow we are all returning back to teeside to remove the wings, we have 3 days down for this but hope the weather is kind and the buggers come off easily so we can do it in two days